- Bybit CEO reveals hacker used Bitcoin mixers to launder $1.4B in stolen funds, with 88.87% traceable.
- A 440,091 ETH was converted into 12,836 BTC and dispersed across 9,117 wallets via BTC mixers.
- Bybit calls for more bounty hunters to help decode BTC mixer transactions and recover stolen funds.
The Bybit CEO, Ben Zhou, gave an update regarding the investigation of the funds that were stolen in the recent hack that targeted the exchange. In an X post, Zhou provided some details about the investigation and stated that the hacker used Bitcoin mixers to cash out 500k Ether and about $1.4 billion in assets in total. Currently, the investigators can track down $ 88.87% of stolen money while 7.59% of the funds are untraceable and 3.54% have been frozen.
Bitcoin Mixer Used for Laundering
Zhou elaborated that 86.29% of the stolen funds, which are about 440,091 ETH ($1.23 billion) was exchanged into 12,836 BTC and spread across 9,117 wallets. The spread in the number of Bitcoin per wallet is approximately 1.41. Zhou went further and explained that the said hacker had employed BTC mixers like Wasabi, CryptoMixer, Railgun, and TornadoCash. Particularly, 193 BTC were sent through Wasabi Mixer and after that the money was divided to P2P marketplaces.
The use of Bitcoin mixer has greatly hindered the tracking of stolen money. This decoding the communications of the organisers is the biggest problem facing investigators. While the use of mixers becomes more popular, Bybit’s security team is asking the community to join them in deciphering these types of transactions. Zhou appealed to anyone or any organization with expertise in tracing the stolen money to help in the freezing of any remaining money.
Bounty Reports and Challenges
The amount of bounty reports received in the last 30 days was 5,012, with only 63 of those identified as valid. To which Zhou emphasized on the need for more involvement of people in the community as more bounty hunters are required to decode mixer transactions. The form of bounty hunters that prevents the commission of cybercrimes on the platform is a significant aspect especially in the process of recovering the stolen assets.
However, the misuse of mixer to clean the stolen funds has presented the following challenges Despite this, the funds are still somewhat traceable. While Bybit’s security team investigates the flow of funds it has taken, Zhou urges both the general populace of crypto enthusiasts and the professionals in the field to participate in aiding in the funds recovery process.
This update also reveals some of the problems that exchanges are having with cases of cybercrimes and the increasing sophistication of the methods of tracking stolen Bitcoins such as use of Bitcoinmixers.